How to avoid conflicts in online communication?

One way or another, various conflicts happen in everyone’s life. They can arise both at the domestic level and in the online environment. Before understanding how to quickly and consequence-free get out of conflict situations, it is worth understanding in detail why, in fact, these troubles in the process of communication happen?

Common causes of conflict

First of all, it is worth outlining clear boundaries of what exactly is meant by online communication. Many psychologists refer to this type of communication as all types of communication between people on the Internet, in which two opponents cannot see each other in person. In other words, online communication conflicts are clashes between people with opposing interests that take place in social networks, messengers, chat rooms, forums, comments under bloggers’ channels, etc. This means that to the category of online communication, video conversations and even voice messaging have nothing to do with online dialog of people.

A large number of aggressors on the Internet who hide their identity under anonymity

It is no secret that the Internet in any of its manifestations is a place where aggressive individuals gather. Unfortunately, there is no escape from them, because unbalanced and inadequate people can be found at any turn. Not only that the majority of anonymous Internet users do not observe the banal rules of decency and do not even say hello, but they also take on personalities and begin to be rude. Thus, it is safe to say that one of the main reasons for conflicts in online communication is the lack of responsibility for actions on the Internet, which is guaranteed to boorish users by anonymity.

It follows that aggressive individuals from the Internet only in this way show their ill-manneredness and insecurity. After all, it is obvious to everyone that these very boorish people would never behave in real life this way. And when communicating online, nothing stops them – they can sit quietly at home in a cozy armchair and pour dirt on other adequate people.

Of course, if you are such an internet user who fits the above description, there are few ways to solve the problems as such, namely there are two.

1. ignore such a person and do not respond to his provocative messages
2. or try to have an “educational conversation” with him in a polite form in the hope that the person will finally stop being rude and behaving inappropriately. The main thing is not to lose your temper and not to take personalities in response. It is necessary to remain calm and in no case to take what is written too personally.

Misunderstanding your opponent when communicating online

Very often people of opposite interests meet on the Internet. It is this fact that becomes a key prerequisite for the emergence of confrontation and conflicts between people. But, in addition, due to the lack of online communication of a sufficient number of ways to show the intonation of speech and emotional mood of a person, opponents can perceive people’s messages in both a positive and negative manner. That is, if a user, for example, of a social network, wrote a message with good intentions to others, it does not guarantee that there will be some person who misunderstood what was written and took the message in a hostile manner. This is why misunderstanding is a fairly common cause of conflicts on the Internet, and as a consequence – the resulting conflict.

To avoid conflict due to misunderstandings, it is important to be polite when sending messages and, where possible, use emoticons as a means of expressing emotion. This will help avoid a significant number of potential conflicts.

Targeted online bullying and trolling

Trolling is a communication practice of some rude and ill-mannered people, aimed at inciting confrontations between groups of people, as well as conflicts. The main goal of such internet users is to bring out a person’s emotions and provoke as much mutual swearing and name-calling as possible. People who engage in trolling are called trolls. They can be dealt with in the same way as people from the category of “aggressive anonymous” described above. That is, the easiest thing to do is to ignore provocative messages and try to participate less in the discussion of a topic that is obviously conflictual.

So, what are some ways to deal with conflict in online communication?

There are a few tips to avoid getting into conflict situations when using the Internet:

1. Observe the norms of politeness.
2. Respond neutrally to unwarranted criticism and avoid getting upset over hurtful messages.
3. Ignore negative comments about yourself.
4. Being yourself and not adjusting to anyone else.
5. Not to impose your opinion on others.

These tips will help you avoid 98% of the conflicts that happen on social media and messengers millions of times a day.

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